3. Circular Open Source Fashion¶
RESEARCH & IDEATION¶
WAYUU TRIBE¶
There’s a Colombian tribe that is very recognized along the country because of their weaving and their modular patterns, it symbolizes their perspective on life and cultural traditions, and each pattern can even represent an important figure for the tribe, such as snakes, mammals, insects.
When we started this week’s exercise this Pre-Columbian tradition was the first thing that came to my mind, women from the tribe make bags, clothes, sheets with this weaving technique, they’re very colorful, traditional and valuable for Colombian people because it’s important to keep these rich cultural traditions alive.
Here you can see some of the patterns
GIANCARLO MAZZANTI¶
As an architect I also studied during one semester about modular architecture and how practical it is for some projects, so I remembered this Colombian architect and this project called ‘Bosque de La Esperanza’ which is very interesting because the pieces not only fit in 2 dimensions but also in 3D, so the result you get is a beautiful roof for a sports center that represents nature, union and hope in the middle of an pretty unsafe neighborhood.
MARY-ANN WILLIAMS¶
I heard about her work in the lecture very briefly and it really caught my attention, so I went onto her website and was fascinated by everything as I’ve never found it easy to work with modular pieces,but she had so many!!! So, I could understand a little more.
Images credits: - Wayuu - Mazzanti - Mary-Ann
The three of them motivated me in different ways, first one was that it's fascinating as a Colombian that we have these beautiful traditions and we're used to see them but they're incredibly valuable, and second one, to play with the pattern not just in 2d but also in 3d, as an architectural building but in a smaller scale.
From the first moment I knew I didn’t want to do something with straight lines, so it was quite a challenge but after looking in past student’s projects I found clarity...
INSPIRATION & REFERENCES¶
Initially, I was drawn to exploring Voronoi patterns, which are commonly found in nature, because I’m fascinated by how they also appear in our own skin. This became my starting point: ‘bringing the skin out.’ While we usually cover our skin, I wanted to do the opposite — to enhance and highlight our bodies. By incorporating these patterns, my goal is to emphasize our connection to nature. If the same patterns exist in both nature and our bodies, it shows that we are not separate from nature, but rather a part of it — neither above nor below it.
Images credits:
- Unsplash
I aim to express this idea through designs for a top or a bag, visually representing this connection.
The references that caught my attention from previous students are:
EMMA PICANYOL
I chose her work because I found the pattern incredibly beautiful and smart how she connects these flower-like modular pieces!
MAITE METHOL
She uses bigger pieces but connect them from a very interesting approach so when I saw her work I knew I didn’t want to have just one modular connection, I wanted to do some straps to connect my piece so it wouldn’t be a whole but some parts of it could be connected differently through these straps.
STEPHANIE-JOHNSON
I loved how her design was reversible and had these nice eye shapes, so I wanted to play with some of that through my design too.
TOOLS¶
PROCESS¶
PLAYING WHILE DESIGNING¶
Initially, I wanted to practice and learn more about Grasshopper, so I had a lot of fun experimenting with different shapes to find one that fit my vision and that I really liked!!!
Here you can see the whole process I developed in Rhinoceros 1 and a very basic script Grasshopper 2
First Piece
Second Piece
At the end but I didn't use the Voronoi pattern to avoid overcomplicating it but I'll be definetely be trying again in another project
TIP!!!
If you´re having trouble trying to find what to do, or where to start,
don´t think that you want to do a specific fashion piece but instead one
or many modular pieces that when connected can make almost anything wearable.
TESTING ON PAPER¶
After I finished developing my modular pieces inside the digital world it was time to see if it truly worked and for that we used some paper printed pieces to not waste any fabric in case the pattern didn´t work.
TESTING ON FABRIC¶
I chose these fabrics because I wanted to use only what was in the lab, and the colors were perfect for mi vision. Also I wanted to give a second chance to a small piece of leather I loveddddd, so It was a challenge to make all the pieces fit in here but in the end it worked.
NESTING¶
The laser cut nesting 3 was created using Rhinoceros 3D. I found there are some nesting plug-ins, I didn't use them for this project but I'm already searching to use them next time! I did my best to nest all pieces and I realized that the fabric that was left from the felt looked really cool and if I thought it before cutting it would have been a really nice piece of clothing to be 0 waste.
LASER CUTTING¶
NEOPRENE
FELT
LEATHER
The settings for the leather were the most difficult ones to achieve, at first, we did somo tests but it didn't cut through so we had to increase the power value. Let's take a look at the settings...
- Neoprene Nude: Power-50 Speed-0.70
- Felt: Power-60 Speed-4.50
- Leather: Power-60 Speed-1.50
ASSEMBLY PROCESS¶
Here are some videos of me through the assembly proccess, as I didn´t have a lot of pieces it took me a few hours in the afternoon to get my top done!
Hahaha pls wash your pieces before assembling them because you could stain the fabric and also your hands will end up looking like mine in the video
I wore the top but the pattern made it possible for it to be other clothing pieces like a bag.
FINAL RESULTS!!!¶
I like to call this piece 'Platanal' because the orange felt and the shape resemble bananas or plantains so I found it very funny :smiley:
Haha I tried my best to be the model
Fabrication files¶
-
File: Rhinoceros Modular Pattern ↩
-
File: Grasshopper Script ↩
-
File: Nested Sheets ↩